Constantinople is invoked as a cautionary example in the discussion of military dependence and political control. Its decisive significance lies in the transformation of foreign protection into foreign rule: the city’s ruler summoned Turkish soldiers to defend the surrounding Greek territory, but their presence outlasted the conflict and helped initiate Greece’s subjection to an outside power.

A City Used to Illustrate Auxiliary Rule

Constantinople enters the argument through the conduct of its Emperor, who, lacking sufficient protection from his own forces, summoned ten thousand Turkish soldiers into Greece. The measure was presented as a response to immediate danger, but it transferred the decisive military power to troops controlled by another ruler. The example therefore links Constantinople with the broader problem of a government seeking security through forces that it cannot command independently.

The Failure of Temporary Protection

The Turkish soldiers did not withdraw when the war ended. Their refusal to leave converted an invited military presence into a continuing occupation. What had initially been treated as assistance became a permanent political fact, because the soldiers retained the ability to determine conditions after the original emergency had passed.

From Military Aid to Servitude

The consequences were not limited to the Emperor’s loss of control over his troops. The continuing Turkish presence marked, in the book’s formulation, the beginning of the servitude of Greece to the Infidel. Constantinople thus functions as a geographical and political hinge in the example: the city’s appeal for protection opened a wider territorial path through which foreign power became established in Greece.

Comparison with Other Conquests

The example contrasts with the book’s preferred reliance on a ruler’s own arms. Auxiliary troops may be highly capable, but their loyalty belongs to their own officers and sovereign rather than to the authority that summons them. Constantinople demonstrates the extreme consequence of that dependency: even if foreign troops are introduced to preserve a state, their victory can leave the inviting ruler subordinate to them. This warning is set beside other cases in which foreign or non-native military forces endangered their employers, while the broader discussion of conquest distinguishes such externally supported rule from the more secure foundations created by a ruler’s own forces and institutions.

Political Significance

Constantinople’s role is illustrative rather than narrative. The city is not described through a sustained local history, but through the institutional consequence of one strategic decision. Its example reinforces the principle that military protection cannot safely be separated from political authority: once armed outsiders possess the power to remain, the state that invited them may lose the capacity to dismiss them. In this sense, Constantinople embodies the reversal by which an appeal for security becomes the mechanism of submission.